Evening Brief: ‘Erosion of trust’

Tonight’s Evening Brief is brought to you by PrescribeIT™, the only national, not-for-profit e-prescribing service that enhances medication safety and protects patient privacy.

Good evening to you.

We begin at the National Press Theatre, where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said early this morning that the Liberal government is seeking outside legal advice on separating the attorney general and justice minister position. He was there to discuss the SNC-Lavalin controversy that has dogged his government for the past month, and said they will seek out external opinions on separating the post and policies for ministers and staff on handling judicial matters. He didn’t elaborate on specifics, noting the planning process remains in the early stages.

“(I) will take many lessons from these recent days,” he told reporters.

Trudeau has been engulfed in controversy since the Globe and Mail reported allegations that his office inappropriately pressured then-attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould to interfere in the criminal case against Quebec construction and engineering firm SNC-Lavalin. He has has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, saying he and his staff were simply expressing concerns about the risk to company employees from a guilty conviction in the case.

iPolitics/Matthew Usherwood

He said he was unaware at the time that Wilson-Raybould had firmly decided against extending a deferred prosecution agreement to the company, noting the law creating the instrument allows it to be used any time prior to a verdict. He chalked up the controversy to an “erosion of trust” between her and his former principal secretary Gerald Butts that he should have caught earlier. “I was not aware of that erosion of trust, and as prime minister and leader of the federal ministry, I should have been.”

Trudeau added: “I believe that real leadership is about listening, learning and compassion. One of the things central to my leadership is fostering an environment where my ministers, caucus and staff feel comfortable coming to me when they have concerns.” More from Marco Vigliotti.

Still with provocative tweets: The Public Prosecution Service of Canada — the independent body that prosecutes federal offences and is tangled up in this whole affair— fired one off this morning saying its lawyers must be free to do their jobs without “political influence.” That comes one day after Butts’ testimony before the House justice committee. Coincidence? We think not.

“Justin Trudeau would have Canadians to believe that all of this took place simply because different people had difference experiences of events. But there is something that Justin Trudeau simply does not understand. The truth cannot be experienced differently. There is such a thing as right and wrong and real leaders know the difference between them.”

In Ontario, the Ford government is tabling its first budget on April 11. It will be released three weeks after the federal budget is tabled in Ottawa and marks the first time Ontarians will see the Tories’ timeline for slashing the province’s $13.5 billion deficit. During the 2018 election campaign, Premier Doug Ford said he could balance the budget with no job cuts within his first mandate.

Ford and his government are admitting no mistake in appointing Ford-friend Ron Taverner to the OPP and are instead blaming the “police-hating” NDP for forcing Taverner to quit. Taverner asked the government to pull his name from contention for OPP commissioner on Wednesday. He was appointed to the job in November, but his installation was postponed pending a conflict of interest review into the appointment. Today, the premier appeared in the legislature for the first time this week and immediately went on the offensive.

“I want to thank the leader of the police-hating party for the question,” Ford said at the beginning of his answer to the NDP’s call for a public inquiry.

Taverner’s appointment has been gripped by an ever growing controversy since it was first announced. In quick succession iPolitics reported that Taverner was only able to apply for the job after the qualifications were lowered, Ford admitted he didn’t recuse himself from the final decision, and then deputy OPP commissioner Brad Blair filed a complaint about the hiring process, launched a lawsuit, and then was fired. More from Marieke Walsh.

“Last night’s news vindicates Brad Blair’s unwavering resolve to protect the OPP from political interference,” Blair’s legal counsel Julian Falconer said in a statement. Blair was fired on Monday from the OPP after speaking out about the hiring process that saw Taverner appointed over Blair. Walsh has that story as well.

The shots keep coming from President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney. Today Michael Cohen filed a suit against the Trump Organization in a Manhattan court, accusing the company of breaching a contract that ensured his legal expenses related to the ongoing special counsel investigation would be paid. As Bloomberg reports, the documents state that the Trump Organization ceased payments to Cohen’s legal defence effort in 2018, which he calls a breach of his contract. Word is he’s after $1.9 million in disputed legal fees.

Meanwhile in a Virginia courtroom, the sentencing hearing for former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort has begun — and the 69-year-old has shown up in a wheelchair. Last year, a jury convicted Manafort on eight counts of tax and bank fraud related to his overseas work advising politicians in Ukraine. The Associated Press has this live feed.

Former White House chief of staff John Kelly has voiced opposition to Trump’s push to build a border wall, saying that a structure spanning the entire U.S.-Mexico border would be a “waste of money.” “We don’t need a wall from sea to shining sea,” he said during a public interview at Duke University yesterday. Politico reports.

Admittedly, this is now where we figured the golden shower video would come from, but in Brazil, far-right President Jair Bolsonaro has sparked shock and outrage by tweeting a video showing one man urinating on another during his country’s massive annual street carnival. The point? Apparently he wanted to denigrate the raucous celebration.

The Kicker:

Turning to groovy grannies, guess who set foot on Instagram today? The Queen! In her first post today she shared a letter sent to her great-great-grandfather Prince Albert by the world’s first computer pioneer as she visited the Science Museum in London. She signed it off ‘Eilzabeth R’.